It does, however, make me long for a picnic. A good, old fashioned, picnic. I yearn for a thick tartan blanket, with slight hints of cat hair. There will be a trestle table that someone has used for wallpapering, with a clean, white tablecloth to cover it. Someone will have brought folding chairs, canvas ones that you sit in momentarily and then fear you may never get out of. There will be cushions, old ones that “don’t matter if they get grass stains”. They will get grass stains. At one side there will be a large umbrella, for shade, that looks like it might blow away in the slightest breeze – someone will try to anchor it.

Ice will be melting around cold bottles of beer and sparkling wine (we may have even splashed out on Real Champagne). There will be sandwiches of all varieties, to suit both carnivores and vegetarians. Smoked mackerel pate, sausage rolls, Camemberthamroastchickensaladscotcheggs…  We’ll be tearing at french sticks, smearing them in slightly warm butter and dropping crumbs everywhere. The seagulls will approve.

And this glorious picnic, this glorious day of lounging on grass and flicking off insects, will descend into the beautifulness that is being half-cut on a summer’s day. There will be giggles, and short barking shouts of amusement. Someone will fall over, they’ll have grass stains too. Fingers sticky with strawberry juice will reach for sparkling water in an effort to keep hydration levels up, this will be a half-hearted attempt and a quick guzzle will soon polish off  what’s left. Pimms will be called for. And we will smile, and tell stories, and moan and complain about the usual little things that make us irritable. We’ll get slight sunburn, but none of us will think to shelter under the umbrella. It will be a splendid day and we will be happy.

So June, please do buck up. You see, I’ve got the plan all sorted.

One look up from my Kindle and I was transported back to crisp autumn mornings, waiting at the bus stop up the road from my parents for my navy blue school bus. On a main road, but in a village; my memories of those few minutes every morning are of bird song, frosted grass crumpling under foot and something countryside clean. That fresh air. Those greeny browns of the falling leaves. That crunch of unbroken frost. The silence.

I realised that the greens, browns and golden sunsets that I catch out of the window each day have given me a sense of the silence and calm of the countryside. Together with the book on my lap they have created a bubble for me, between one City and the other city.

I’m writing this on my way home, trying to map at which sections of the journey this bubble closes round me. There’s the rush through the tube, but I now find this automatic and barely think about where I am. Once on the train I find My Seat, and before I take off my coat I realise I’ve pulled my Kindle from my bag and laid it on the table. I’ve always read a lot but I currently get through about four books a week. This makes my Kindle purchasing history since I was given it in June, somewhere around 50 books.

The fifteen minutes to East Croydon are still the City, the carriage is fuller, the voices are louder and these are the minutes I sink back into the story. There is no bubble yet, but as we pull out of the station and through the suburbs, trees line the tracks and I am enclosed.

There is a section around Three Bridges where sometimes sudden flashes of bright gold hit the screen and I turn to beautiful rolling clouds, drenched in a pink gold sunset. The sky seems wider from a train window but it’s only a glimpse and my eyes lower, bubble unbroken.

The one place that I consciously raise my head on each trip is Balcombe viaduct. I look up and out at the fields below and this evening am rewarded with a pink red sun, only a sliver of crescent above the blackened distant trees.

Around Burgess Hill and Hassocks I can occasionally smell the glorious scent of wood smoke, and yearn for log fires whilst snuggling further down into my seat and my book.

And my bubble carries me through to Preston Park, when the other city grows close and home beckons, reality starts to seep in.

I am definitely loving getting three hours a day of solid reading in; my Kindle and I are becoming best friends.  This weeks list includes Caitlin Moran’s “How To Be A Woman” which has me giggling inappropriately and China Mieville’s “The City & The City”.  I’ve not yet had to stand for any part of the journey and I’ve only been delayed once and by five minutes.  I suspect that this golden period can’t last too long however, and I’m always conscious of the inevitable “leaves on the line”.

Of course, this laissez-faire attitude my well somewhat strengthened by the fact that it is a very exciting week.  But I’m not going to tell you about Lanyrd today, you’ll just have to catch up with our Friday week notes!

In the time in between I’ve seen the company double in size and have worked with some remarkably clever people and some fantastic clients.  I’ve also had the joy of organising our conferences: dConstruct, UX London and this year’s new addition Ampersand.  It has been a truly remarkable job and I have learnt an incredible amount and made some super friends.

As The Littlest Hobo would say (if dogs could indeed talk), “There’s a world that’s waiting to unfold” and I feel it’s time for me to grab my metaphorical hat and go unfold it. I shall be leaving Clearleft on the 17th June (Ampersand day – I thought I’d go out with a bang!) and will be jumping on a train to Old Street to join Natalie and Simon Willison at Lanyrd.  It’s a fantastic opportunity and the word “enthusiastic” doesn’t really cover how excited I am to be joining.

I shall be very sad to leave Clearleft and will wave fond farewells to all my chums.  Thanks guys, you’ve been Marvellous!

I can’t really sum up the last 10 years in 140 characters. Besides, it seems somewhat offhand to just serve out my whole twenties in such a way. Of course, I can’t write it all down either (and frankly neither would I want to, it would go on for, well, years). So here is a little summary (in no particular order).

I have watched and read far too many murder mysteries.
I have read far more books than I own.
I have started, but not finished, a creative writing course.
I haven’t even started the garden design course which resides in my cupboard.
I have changed career once, but had many jobs. (Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a riddle?)
I have moved three times (which may not sound like much but that’s all within the last three years) and bought one flat.
I have owned three cars, and now none.
I have visited the USA, Switzerland, France, The Netherlands, Greece, Spain & Ireland. I have been to the desert and survived.
I have fallen in love twice and had my heart broken twice. And I have lost someone I could have loved if he had been able to cope with the world.
I have, on occasion, lost hope but fortunately always found it again.
I have stayed up & watched the sun rise on countless, messy occasions.
I have also stayed up and ignored the sun rise on countless, messy occasions.
I have made many friends who I hope I will always know.
Then again, I have met some people I’d rather not know.
I have cried at numerous films, either because the really were that bad, or because they made my heart swell up with sadness.
I have acquired a second cat and borrowed two more for a while.
As far as I remember, I have not danced the funky chicken dance. And nor do I intend to.
I am not where I thought I would be. But I have had many adventures on the way.
I’ve dyed, cut, grown, dyed, grown, cut etc. my hair.
I’ve started wearing contact lenses and glasses but I do miss being able to see without them.
I have broken a surprisingly large quantity of wine glasses.
I have changed my mind about tea, it’s actually rather nice.
I haven’t changed my mind about chocolate, or biscuits, or cakes. For which I regularly receive looks of shock and horror.
I have made any number of mistakes, but once I’ve cleared up the mess I realise I’ve learnt from them.
I have had six good years, two amazing years, one bad year and one year I’d like to burn, where is that desert when you need it?

So thank you to those people who made it what it was; you know who you are.

This year’s event focused on “Designing for Tomorrow”, kicking off with a round of workshops ranging from designing for mobile experiences to hardware hacking with arduino sets. As usual, I don’t really get a chance to spend much time in the workshops but was pleased to see how much people were enjoying them.

I think skipping the pre-party this year helped me keep calm for the morning of the conference. Even the Dome staff were impressed with my level of tranquility! The volunteers pulled off a fantastically smooth registration and set the day off without a hitch. With UX London finishing just a few months before this year’s dConstruct, and with other stresses and strains this summer, I feared that there were bound to be things I’d missed. Fortunately if there were, they were so easily dealt with that I didn’t notice. As with all events, there are certain issues you can prepare for and some that you don’t necessarily expect; we had more of the former than the latter which makes my stress load much lighter.

I missed a couple of talks this year, so will eagerly await the podcasts to catch up. It was good to see so much discussion around the topics throughout the day and as I obviously keep an eye on Twitter, to see these discussions progressing after the event. To see attendees inspired and taking experiences home with them shows that the conference achieves what we hope for, to give something back to the community.

Now I have a small conference break and am back to managing the exciting new projects we have coming up, before I start planning for next year’s UX London.

Either way, adjustments must be made.  For the past two weeks I have been making several adjustments, slowly; sometimes with careful thought and sometimes trying hard not to think.  There will be many changes to come and new plans to make; new directions to seek out and new adventures.  No matter what has happened, it’s always difficult not to be excited by the future.

Two weeks on and we now finally have a working bathroom.  Although not finished, we have the essentials plumbed in and a particularly splendid bath which makes the entire experience worthwhile.  (It was certainly an *experience*!)  It has been a pretty ghastly couple of weeks.  I expected to find the lack of heating the biggest problem, but being squished into about a square foot of free sofa space and being surrounded by dust, dirt and a bathroom suite really did get to me.

We did the sensible thing and stayed in a hotel for the first weekend.  After a root around we decided on the Lansdowne Place Hotel, over on the Hove side of town.  It was nice (it had a bath!) and fairly reasonable for a mid-range hotel in Brighton.  There were a couple of things which let it down, but to be honest the hot running water put these into perspective for me and breakfast in bed certainly helped.

It’s odd staying in a hotel in your home town.  You’re away from home and yet there you are, bang in the middle of where you spend every day.  Walking into town, I actually looked around me rather than glazing over and wandering on auto pilot.  It was nice to walk “home” along the seafront rather than strolling in the opposite direction as usual.  It made me realise that ever since moving to Brighton eleven years ago, I have always lived in the same area.  It was refreshing to see Brighton from a different angle for a change.

My main feeling was that 2008 was a year of adjustment.  May was my first Clearleft birthday, and I noticed that I was really starting to feel comfortable in my new career and had adjusted to the new stresses and strains of project management and conference production.  Come August it was time to move and relocate the cats – 2008’s major adjustment.  The amalgamation of stuff has been a long winded affair, there’s still a little of my stuff back at the flat, but the majority has now been integrated into Rosehill.  This means I feel a lot more settled now, rather than a half-guest-hybrid as I did on occasion in the first months. The cats of course, are another matter and one I want to write about more deeply in another post.  A fragile arrangement has come about where Horace & Monty rule the upstairs and Zack & Zeke the sitting room.  There are occasional scuffles and sorties into the opposition’s territory but on the whole they are much more settled now.  My current adjustment is dealing with the dust, lack of hot water and toilet and the general disarray in the house whilst the new bathroom is fitted.  Boy will I be pleased when that’s finished!

I noticed I travelled far less in 2008 – the fantastic Lift in Geneva in February and then off to Greece and Halkidiki in September – was a considerable drop from 2007.  I am looking forward to heading back to the States and SXSW in March though and would love to head back to Black Rock City.  Oddly, I’ve missed airports.  (Yeah, I know, that is weird!)

I don’t really have any resolutions for 2009 but there are things I’d certainly like to do more of.  And of course, there’s that whole “jumping out of a plane before I’m 30!” thing – but more on that another day.

There’s going to be lots to organise in the run up to June, so I’m starting to plan for this now.  Fortunately last year’s dConstruct doesn’t seem too long ago and so I don’t feel there’s a huge amount to remind myself of before I get stuck in.

They are both very different conferences, so I’m looking forward to seeing how UXLondon differs in terms of organisation.  There’s the obvious distance issue – London rather than just around the corner at the Dome.  UXLondon is also aimed at a very different audience, as Andy mentions.  It is really exciting to see it really start to take shape now and I have to say, what a fantastic line up!

On another Clearleft note – we’re looking for an new intern to come and join us.  This will be the third internship we’ve run since summer last year and are finding them really beneficial, as have our interns. Yay!